1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to heat dissipation devices, and more particularly to a heat dissipation device having a heat pipe for cooling an electronic component, such as an integrated circuit package.
2. Description of Related Art
With the advance of computer technology, electronic devices such as a central processing unit (CPU) are achieving ever higher operating speeds. It is well known that the faster an electronic device operates, the more heat it generates. If the heat is not quickly dissipated from the electronic device, the operation of the electronic device will suffer instability or even malfunction. Generally, in order to ensure normal operation of the electronic device, a heat dissipation device is used to dissipate the heat generated by the electronic device.
Typically, a finned metal heat sink is attached to an outer face of a CPU to remove the heat therefrom. The related metal heat sink is made of a highly heat-conductive metal, such as copper or aluminum, and generally comprises a solid metal central core for contacting with the CPU to absorb the heat therefrom and a plurality of curved fins radially extending from a circumferential face of the core for dissipating the heat. In use, a bottom of the core thermally contacts the CPU and absorbs heat from the CPU. The heat in the core is then transferred to the fins to be dissipated to ambient air. However, as the operating speed of electronic components has increased markedly in recent years, heat sinks that transfer the heat only by metal conduction are insufficient, as a result, the heat in the bottom of the solid metal central core cannot be transferred to the whole heat dissipation device quickly enough.
Heat pipes, which operate via phase change of working liquid sealed in a hollow pipe, have been widely used due to their excellent heat transfer properties. Thus the additional use of heat pipes serves to reduce thermal gradients in the heat sink. However, a traditional combination of the aforesaid heat sink and a heat pipe fails to achieve low heat resistance, large contact area and great heat transfer capacity between the heat sink and the heat pipe. Accordingly, what is needed is a heat dissipation device incorporating a heat pipe which has an enhanced heat dissipation performance.